HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Legal researchers say the Zimbabwe president’s demands for constitutional reforms to be complete next month aren’t practical and if he calls elections this year it will likely stir violence and chaos.

President Robert Mugabe has vowed to go ahead with elections after May, with or without reforms.

The independent legal think tank Veritas said in its latest bulletin Tuesday constitutional changes are necessary to "level the political playing field" and avoid upheavals and violence seen in the last 2008 vote.

It warned polls without the reforms "will be a sham in the eyes of the region and the world." It said such an election breached terms of the nation’s three-year power sharing deal and several formal resolutions by regional mediators on a free vote.